Five Arrested in Countywide Child Pornography Sweep

San Rafael, CA – February 23, 2012. Five Marin County men were arrested Thursday following a countywide sweep of suspected child pornography users. Over 70 detectives from 23 agencies participated in collaboration with the Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children (SVICAC) Task Force.

Local detectives included teams from San Rafael, Novato, TwinCities, Fairfax, MillValley, Tiburon, and San Jose PD, along with the Marin County Sheriff's Office, Marin County District Attorney’s Office, the FBI, and Homeland Security. A cluster of suspected child pornography users detected in Marin County led the SVICAC Task Force to conduct the operation, which began early Thursday morning. Officers armed with warrants searched seven homes in San Rafael, Novato, Fairfax, Larkspur and unincorporated MarinCounty. Computers with pornographic images and other evidence linking the men to the possession of child pornography were seized.

Those arrested include San Rafael resident Carlos Martinez, 31, Daniel Dinneen, 22, of Fairfax, Charles T. Brown, 48, of Bolinas, Mads Buemann, 48, of Larkspur; as well as a 16 year old male juvenile in Novato. All were arrested for felony possession of child pornography. Dinneen had two additional felony charges for weapons violations. The adults were booked at Marin County Jail and the juvenile was cited and released. San Rafael Police Chief Diana Bishop said “I am gratified that our agency was able to work in partnership with other Marin County law enforcement agencies, as well as detectives from the San Jose Police Department, to identify and arrest those who prey on our children.”

The 8-year-old Silicon Valley task force is one of 61 around the nation targeting online peer-to-peer file sharing evolving from previous investigative techniques when suspects often were identified through chat room decoy operations. Investigators search for hard-core images involving children, see who is downloading the images to individual IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, use search warrants to determine who owns the individual IP address, and then execute additional search warrants for those people’s homes. A key feature of the task force arsenal is a mobile forensics lab that allows investigators in a technology-stocked van to drive up to a suspect's home, seize hard drives, and immediately begin searching for evidence that would normally take months to obtain from a state Department of Justice lab.

The SVICAC Task Force has arrested over 20 men for possession of child pornography since November. The task force has conducted a number of child porn sweeps in the Bay Area over the last few months, resulting in multiple arrests in Sonoma County, Monterey County, Alameda County, San Jose and Oakland. For information about the SVICAC Task Force, contact San Jose Police Sgt. Gregory Lombardo at (408) 537-1397 or at 3439@sanjoseca.gov.